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LYON, France – Experts from law enforcement and the private sector have gathered at INTERPOL’s General Secretariat headquarters to discuss ways to effectively combat the growing problem of vehicle crime.

The three-day INTERPOL Global Conference on Vehicle Crime (26-28 November) brings together nearly 200 participants from 55 countries, 40 private entities and six international organizations to share expertise and best practices on preventing vehicle theft, recovering stolen vehicles and ensuring stolen vehicles are not used in other crimes.

Among the topics to be discussed are the links between vehicle theft and organized crime; procedures for recovering stolen vehicles; tools and technology available for preventing and identifying stolen vehicles; worldwide legislation on stolen vehicles; and links between vehicle crime and border management.

In his keynote speech, LoJack Corporation’s Senior Director of Global Government Regulatory Affairs, Diego Tebaldi, said: “LoJack is proud to have had the opportunity to share our experiences and perspectives with the conference's many distinguished attendees and auto theft experts. As the global vehicle theft trends we illustrated demonstrate, this phenomenon continues to be prevalent globally and the use of technology by sophisticated thieves continues to circumvent standard protection.

“As a global leader in safety, security and protection for the ‘connected car,’ we continue to partner with law enforcement all over the world to help reduce the impact to citizens.”

INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said INTERPOL has long believed that with many stakeholders involved, law enforcement alone cannot successfully combat transnational vehicle crime.

“The gamut of this transnational crime is, as we all know, well beyond just vehicles from one country being stolen and then sold in another. From acts of terrorism to trafficking in human beings, weapons or drugs, vehicle crime touches nearly all forms of serious crime,” said Secretary General Noble.

In this respect, the INTERPOL Chief highlighted the cases of the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, both of which involved explosives which had been transported in stolen vehicles.

Mr Noble also noted the success of INTERPOL’s Project INVEX in sharing information with a view to tracing stolen vehicles. Initiated in 2009 with the participation of a handful of European countries and car manufacturers, to date some 2,000 vehicles worldwide have been traced through Project INVEX.

“We need to partner with the private sector, and the success of our Project INVEX, which is being conducted in partnership with just four private sector manufacturers, has reinforced our belief,” concluded Mr Noble.

INTERPOL’s Stolen Motor Vehicles (SMV) database contains more than 7.2 million records submitted by 127 member countries. There has been a large increase in the use of the SMV database in recent years – from three million searches in 2007 to more than 100 million searches this year.